«All images on this website are assembled & printed in a traditional darkroom.» This is the text that appears on Misha Gordin's web site home page. In the era of digital photography and post-processing software, Misha has continued working conceptual photography in the most traditional way from the first image that marked his style in 1972.

Misha Gordin is a conceptual photographer born in Latvia, 1946. As he tells, his parents survived hardships of evacuation and returned back home to Riga, then under Soviet occupation. He grew up among Russian speaking population of Latvia, and Russian culture become his root culture. He graduated from the technical college as aviation engineer but never worked as such, instead he joined Riga Motion Studios as a designer of equipment for special effects.

"Sheptun #7", 2005

«I was in my early twenties and mostly ignorant about art. At this time social realism was an official culture of the country and I did not care about it too much. Information about modern western art was hardly available and my knowledge of it was highly limited.»

«I started to photograph when I was nineteen, driven by desire to create my own personal style and vision. I was involved in portraiture and did some documentary shots, but soon realized the results did not satisfy me. I put my camera aside and concentrated on reading (Dostoevsky, Bulgakov) and cinematography (Tarkovsky, Parajanov). I was constantly looking for the way to express my personal feelings and thoughts using photography.

In 1974, after years of disgust with communist authorities, I left my country and arrived in USA.»

"Multitud Nº 8 / Crowd #8", 1988

"En la unidad de sueño y realidad

Desde los rincones más oscuros del corazón

Como una sombra desde un turbio pasado

Surge la convocatoria para una oración solitaria."

"In unity of dream and real

From darkest corners of the heart

Like shadow from the murky past

Emerges call for a lonely prayer."

"Caídos Nº 5 / Fallen #5", 2007

«In my opinion, conceptual photography is a higher form of artistic expression that places photography on the level of painting, poetry, music and sculpture. It employs the special talent of intuitive vision.

By translating the personal concepts into the language of photography, it reflects the possible answers to major questions of being: birth, death and life.

Creating an idea and transforming it into reality is an essential process of conceptual photography.»

Collegeville, March of 1999.

"Grito Nº 19 / Shout #19", 1986

"Viaje hacia la oscuridad / Journey Into Dark", 1983

«It is not a new idea to manipulate photographic images. As a matter of fact all images are manipulated to a certain degree. The real power of photography emerges when altered reality is presented as existent and is expected to be perceived as such.

An obviously manipulated image is a trick that shows a lack of understanding of the unique power of photography - the belief engraved in our subconscious that what was captured by the camera has to exist. In the best examples of successfully manipulated images the question "Is it real?" does not arise.»

In 1972 I created my first, and most important image - Confession. I instantly recognized the potential possibilities of conceptual approach and the knowledge acquired from this image become a backbone of the work I have produced since.

«One morning as I was sitting outside my fathers seaside house, I noticed the gardener with a wheelbarrow next to him.. It triggered a vision of an open field with a naked woman pushing the wheelbarrow full of broken dolls against a gusting wind. Later that day on my way to work, I saw a group of kids from marching band walking across the street with their instruments. One of them was carrying the drum. It struck me like lightening. That was the missing element I was looking for. I had this vision - simple and clear. I made a drawing of the future image and started to assemble the elements. It took me several weeks to find the right location, props and models.»

This is an open art blog, so you could find images eventually offensive or umconfortable.

If you're an artist and find here images of your art you want to be removed, just tell me and I'll do it immediately. I try to ask for permission always if artist is alive and there's a way to contact, bot not always is possible and there are things I think worth to be known.

In any case, the copyrights of all the images contained in this blog, except where noted, belong to the artists or the legal owners of such rights, and have been published nonprofit and for the only purpose of make the works known to the general public.

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